by Mindy Klasky
“I’ve got the Bob’s Big Boy,” she announced.
“Oh,” Crumb said. “You do not.”
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“Magnificent,” Touchey said in a low tone. “It will fetch a wonderful price.”
“How much?” Vi asked.
“Oh, much,” Crumb said.
“Half a million,” Touchey said.
“Pennies?” Vi said, snorting derisively.
“Oh, no, your dollars,” Touchey said. “We have a number of special customers waiting for this item. We plan to have a…how do you call it? Auction.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Vi said.
“Return here at this time in seven days,” said Touchey.
“One week,” Crumb added.
Vi sipped the coffee until the pair were ready to leave. She noticed they paid their bill with silver dollars.
“You two are such crazy gamblers!” the waitress joked.
“Yes, we won big this time,” Touchey told her with a wink.
At least Touchey and Crumb were helpful in lifting the heavy boxes of gum and candy from Vi’s Jeep and carrying them to their vehicle. Of course, they drove a silver Prius.
The next week, Vi drove home from Yermo with fifty thousand dollars.
Big Boy had not yet sold, but the auction was on.
When Wallace poked his face in Vi’s office the next morning, she was ready.
“I suppose you think I’ll agree to your demands,” she said.
“Well,” Wallace said, chuckling. “You can’t hold out forever.”
“I’m seventy-three,” she snapped. “Waiting for me to die?”
“Well,” said Wallace, all pretense at politeness gone.
Vi took the cashier’s check from her desk drawer and waved it at him.
“I’ve got a backer,” she said. “Someone who would like the Early Man site to re-open, and things to stay the way they are.”
Wallace laughed until he saw the check’s denomination.
“Why…you’re not…” he sputtered.
“I am,” she said. “You can forget interviewing those new archaeologists.”
“I don’t…” Wallace said.
“You will stop, or I’ll be at the next Board meeting, waving this check in their faces.” Vi leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms behind her neck. “There’s more where this came from,” she said, thinking of the Big Boy.
“I suppose—” Wallace said, face flushed.
“You’ll put everything back the way it was. I’m not leaving. And I want the dig opened as soon as possible.”
“I don’t precisely know that we can,” Wallace said. “The insurance alone is—well, this check will barely cover it.”
“As I said,” Vi snapped. “There’s more to come if things go the way the donor wants.”
“I see,” Wallace said. “And who is this donor? This is a cashier’s check from the bank. It simply says ‘cash.’”
“This donor wishes to be anonymous,” Vi said.
“Louis Leakey has been dead for nearly forty years,” Wallace said. “What donor could you get without his help?”
Vi felt her jaw tighten. She loathed Wallace, but this was a new depth even for him.
“Don’t insult Dr. Leakey,” she said quietly. “There’d be no Early Man site or a museum if it weren’t for him.”
“I hardly think that’s true,” Wallace said.
“With this donor, I can open my own museum,” Vi said. She was forgetting her age, feeling headstrong. She had no idea if it was true. After all, Big Boy was still being auctioned.
“Now, now,” Wallace said. “I suppose I was a little harsh. Perhaps if we met together with the donor, we could discuss all of the museum’s future plans.”
“The donor is only interested in the Early Man site and the curatorship,” Vi snapped. “The rest of the junk here is…immaterial.”
“I see,” Wallace said.
“Give me a receipt for the check,” Vi said. “Leave the donor name blank. I believe…he…wants to fill it in for tax purposes.”
Wallace was dismissed.
Vi’s temples pounded. She wondered how quickly she could call the volunteers together. By that weekend, they could reopen the dig!
The next week, Big Boy found his buyer.
Vi presented Wallace with a similar counter check.
The only difference was that at the end of the denomination, there was an extra zero.
“I want a press conference,” she told Wallace. “I want all of the newspapers. And the radio. TV, too.”
“Very good,” Wallace responded. After meeting with the Board, he’d been nothing but compliant smiles. The board meeting was before the second check.
Vi saw no reason not to wear her daily uniform to the press conference: Wrangler jeans, red plaid Pendleton shirt, and cowboy boots.
Dr. Leakey’s figure, coated with fresh flesh-toned paint and outfitted with new glasses, hair, hat and shorts (sans zipper) now stood prominently in the main hall. The museum artist had constructed a new Plexiglas cube to house four of the Calico stone artifacts and included a painted timeline with a visual representation of Early Man at Calico.
Jerry, the ornithologist, seemed happy for Vi. Sure, it took attention away from his priceless collection of bird eggs. But Jerry was a simple man; jealousy had never been his style. Ray, the geologist, was a different matter.
Vi had invited Ray to the press conference several times. Each time, he’d declined with a taciturn grimace.
That morning, Vi went downstairs to ask Ray one more time to attend.
“I’d really like it if you could be there,” she said.
Ray disliked the politics around the museum, its board, and various government officials that periodically descended like locusts to pillage everyone’s budgets.
When he shook his head once again and went back to sorting geodes, Vi exploded.
“Why can’t you be happy?” she demanded. “Nobody ever bothered you. You could go anywhere you wanted, dig up anything. It’s just the Early Man site. People refuse to believe that man was in the Americas a hundred thousand years ago. Maybe longer!”
Ray shook his head again, a wry expression on his face.
“Ray—why not?” she asked.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Ray said. “I don’t think that—”
“Don’t think what?” Vi asked. “It’s been years since we’ve had any attention. Now, people will get interested again. We’ll get even more new funding. We’ll find more tools. More evidence.”
“Vi,” Ray said quietly. “You never paid attention to the data.”
Vi snorted. “Data!” She knew what Ray was referring to. Statistical analysis of the thousands of stone tools found at the Calico Early Man site had supposedly shown that the tools were probably not made by human hands. Most of the numerical legerdemain had to do with the sheer number of artifacts found in a relatively small area.
There were too many tools in that confined space.
That meant to these genius desk jockeys that the tools were natural artifacts. “Geofacts” they called them.
And Vi and her team, and even Louis Leakey, back in the early days, had created this dilemma. The human excavators were supposedly “selecting” the stones that looked man-made out of a larger group broken down by the action of water and wind over eons.
It was not Vi’s fault that no other evidence of Early Man had been found aside from the tools. The age of the site alone, and the wet conditions at primeval Lake Manix, meant that fossilization was much less likely than at some other sites around the world. But something surely had been preserved beyond the stone tools. She needed more money, more time, more staff, and more volunteers.
Hence, the press conference.
“I don’t think people will buy your arguments, even with the money,” Ray said.
“They will! Everybody wants to believe in great discoveries,” Vi said.
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“Maybe,” Ray said, smiling a little. His face softened. “I’ll go, Vi. Just don’t be too disappointed if you don’t get the reaction you expect. Times have changed.”
“They haven’t changed that much,” Vi said. Hearing the gruffness in her voice, she said, “Thanks.”
When the press conference began, Vi’s head felt light. She moved her notes from hand to hand, pushed her glasses up on her nose, and cleared her throat. Then, she tapped the microphone.
There were an awful lot of people seated in front of the dais. Even more people were gathered behind the chairs.
Vi began by describing the history of the Early Man site and the tools that were found there. “These tools are not like the familiar arrowheads and spear points of more recent Native peoples,” she said. “They are rough-hewn, heavy, and typical of Old Stone Age artifacts found throughout Europe and Asia. More than ten thousand such tools, made by human hands, have been found.”
Vi cleared her throat, preparing to continue.
“Man was not related to apes!” yelled a voice from the audience.
“God put the tools there, not man!” someone else cried.
Vi stared at the signs rising all across the audience.
“Intelligent Design!” read most of the professionally-printed signs Vi saw in the crowd.
“Early Man was not primitive, he was Perfect!” read another.
Vi felt Ray’s arm around her shoulder.
“Come on,” his quiet voice said. “It’s not safe.”
Vi lingered at the podium, looking at a young girl in the front row. The girl held a stuffed chimpanzee doll in her lap. She stood, and with a terrible expression twisting her young face, hurled the stuffed animal at Vi’s head.
It was just a doll. Vi did not duck. It was only after the doll hit her with great force that Vi realized that the doll was not stuffed with plush filling, but with rocks—jagged and heavy. The volunteers gathered around.
“Where are the reporters?” Vi asked. “Why did these people come?”
As they led her back to the safety of the museum’s big double doors, Vi saw one final sign, waving proudly above the others.
“There Is No Missing Link Unless He Was Darwin!” it read.
When had the world so changed? Vi wondered. She raised her hand to her temple which throbbed terribly. Drawing her hand away, she saw her fingers slippery with bright blood. Then, she fainted.
“Miss Elliott, you have visitors,” the nurse announced. Vi was restless, eager to get out of the hospital, but they insisted on holding her for “observation.”
Now the reporters showed up. They all wanted to know what it felt like getting hit in the head by a rock-stuffed chimp doll. Apparently, it had been one of the “Jane Goodall” chimps intended to raise money for her wildlife fund, an irony every news report mentioned. The girl had been taken to a foster home. Her parents were also being held, since the father had been the one to show her how to remove the doll’s stuffing and replace it with stones for better effect.
So far, no charges had been filed.
Vi didn’t want them to file charges. She wanted to be able to pretend that none of it had ever happened.
But her next visitors weren’t newspaper reporters.
They were Touchey and Crumb in white lab coats.
“We’ve told everyone we’re visiting MRI technicians,” Touchey said.
“From Australia,” Crumb added. “Aboriginals.”
“I thought you two were from France,” she said.
Touchey and Crumb exchanged glances.
“Yes, that’s right. But we informed the staff we were supposed to test their machine as part of an intercultural exchange program,” Touchey said.
Vi snorted. “Exchange program!”
“They seemed perfectly happy to let us,” Touchey said.
“I don’t know why I didn’t realize,” Vi said. “I don’t know why I thought things would change with some money. Nobody’s interested in the Early Man site. Not unless they’re—”
“Insane Creationists,” Touchey interrupted. “Yes, we’re aware.”
“We wondered if you’d let us help,” Crumb said.
“With what?” Vi demanded. “I’m grateful for the business opportunity. But what more can you do?”
“We wondered if you had other things to…offer,” Touchey said.
Vi shrugged. “I could get more Beemans gum or candy,” she said. “If they ever let me out of this place.”
“You’ll be fine,” Crumb said. He drew a small green stone from the pocket of his lab coat and waved it over Vi’s face. The stone glowed brightly for a moment, then grew dark.
She felt a vague warmth, similar to the feeling that came a few hours after a visit to the dentist when the Novocaine wore off.
“I suppose you healed me,” she grumbled. “Thanks.”
“Yes,” Touchey said. “Mr. Crumb usually handles our medical situations.”
“Why don’t you two just buy your own gum and candy?” she asked. “Why bother with people like me, or poor old Tim?”
Touchey and Crumb once again exchanged glances.
“We have our reasons,” they said simultaneously.
“Ah,” Vi said. Her head, which had been feeling much better, now began to ache fiercely. “You didn’t cure me! You probably gave me a brain tumor,” she cried.
Touchey and Crumb looked at each other again, their dark eyes blinking.
“Possibly,” Crumb said.
“Just go!” Vi cried. She pressed the call button for the nurse.
“Perhaps we had better,” Touchey said.
The two quickly gathered their lab coats and left.
When the nurse came, Vi told her that she had to use the restroom.
“Where did the MRI technicians go?” the nurse asked.
“They told me I had to wait for another test,” Vi said. “Apparently there’s been an emergency.”
“Your face looks much better,” the nurse said. “Why, those stitches are fading already.”
“Thanks,” Vi said, rubbing her temple. “I’ve always been a fast healer.”
For the first time in Vi’s life, she took two consecutive weeks of vacation. She didn’t want to go back. To the museum or the dig.
Her friends came to visit—the dig crew, Ray the geologist, and ornithologist Jerry. Even Wallace and his wife showed up with a bouquet of ugly daisies.
Vi sat on her front porch most of the day. Every few minutes, she reached over and tamped a hunk of tobacco in her corn cob pipe. She never lit it.
She watched the neighborhood kids walk to the bus stop. Then, the trash trucks came—three of them. One for the yard clippings, one for the regular trash, and a differently-shaped one for the recyclables. After that, the mail was delivered. She waved at the mail carrier, but did not speak.
She was trying to think of reasons to go back to work.
So far, she hadn’t thought of any.
Later in the afternoon, she went inside and turned the television on. She could see that it was a talk show. They were discussing female orgasms.
After a few minutes, she realized that for the first time in her life, she was watching Oprah.
Back at the Airstream, Tim had laid in another suitcase of Budweiser. He wasn’t very surprised when he heard scratching noises at the trailer door. He didn’t even bother with his shotgun.
“Come on in. Haven’t found too much for you lately,” he said.
“We brought the good stuff,” Touchey said. Crumb followed him inside. The pair settled in on the love seat and opened their giant mint tin. It had clearly been recently refilled. Crumb grabbed a handful right away, while Touchey, more abstemious, took only two.
“So how’s business?” Tim asked.
“Okay,” Touchey said. “We are concerned about your friend Vi. She hasn’t been back to her employment. She is sitting in front of her domicile.”
“No shit,” Tim said. “She never mis
sed no day of work I ever saw. Keep in mind I only seen her out here, though. Maybe she doesn’t like working inside. I kind of figure she don’t.”
“You heard about the injuries she suffered,” Touchey said.
“Yep,” Tim said. “People like that’s the reason I live out here.”
“Why?” Crumb asked. “Do these types of people object to…”
“They don’t like nobody who ain’t just like them,” Tim said. He popped open a Budweiser can for emphasis.
“You must forgive us,” Touchey said. “From our perspective, you seem just like them. Primitive, irrational, and—”
“I ain’t,” Tim said.
Touchey and Crumb traded glances.
“Are you feeling well today?” Crumb asked Tim.
Tim responded with a belch. “Got heartburn, that’s all,” he said.
“This will help,” Crumb said, removing the green rock from a flap in his silver jumpsuit. He waved the stone over Tim, starting at the top of his head, and moving slowly down over his face, chest, stomach, hips, upper and lower legs, and even Tim’s feet. It glowed, more or less brightly, the entire time.
Tim grinned and sipped Budweiser the entire time. “You think I’m some kind of moron, don’t you?” he said after Crumb had finished. “Even I can tell that’s some kind of space alien full body scan. You think I don’t listen to Coast-to-Coast AM?”
“We don’t think you’re stupid,” Touchey said.
“It did get rid of my heartburn,” Tim said. “I’ll tell you what—I know your real names, too. You ain’t Touchey and Crumb. You,” he said, pointing at Touchey, “are P’Lod. You’re the one that was getting it on with Mrs. Clinton.”
Touchey and Crumb looked again at each other.
“Tim,” Touchey said, “You can’t believe everything you see in that type of publication. Gay fairies have never been ostracized, for example.”
“And P’Lod would never go near that woman,” Crumb added.
“I think not,” said Touchey. “She’s a little forceful for my tastes.”
